Adjectives: Mausoof & Siffah aka Naat & Manoot

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Ok. This is a structured topic, and it's one of my favourites. Also, sorry for my writing because I wrote these about 10 years ago.

ADJECTIVES

Depending on which text and teacher you have, adjectives are given an umbrella title such as:

• Murakabe' Tauseef if you learning with Urdu teachers, this means descriptive phrases or compouds.
• Mawsuf & Siffah if it's a classical Arabic course, or maybe
• Na`at & Man`oot if you're studying Imam Ajrumiyyah.

Tip: this mark (`) looks like an apostrophe but it's a diacritical mark we use in English texts, to represent the Ayn (ع) letter since that doesn't exist in transliterations. For example, `Alayhi-salaam.

What's an Adjective?

In almost all languages, a descriptive word is called an adjective. This describes the ability, colour, size, qualities of a thing or a person. Only NOUNS (an ism) are adjectives. 

Mausoof & Siffa VS Na`at & Manoot

In Arabic, adjectives are called Siffah (صفة) or Na`at (نعت).

The thing being described is called Mausoof (موصوف) or Man`oot (منعوت).

These will make sense as you start picking them out from your examples. It's up to you whether you want to choose the Mausoof-Siffah names or the Naat-Manoot ones. Be clever, memorise both.

Fun fact: the way I remembered them is that Naat is an Urdu song of praise, that comes second in Arabic. Allah's 99 attributes are Siffat, that comes second after His name Allah.

Right, let's get down to some adjective rules.

Flip The Translations

If you had English words to begin with, we usually mention the adjective first. A blue flower, this lovely child, that strong woman, a rainy day. To create your own Arabic phrases, you have to flip the structure to begin with the object. The adjective always comes immediately after.

Remember: when you translate Arabic adjectives to English you will read the object/thing/person first, it will appear backwards. So flip them to say the adjective first in English. *it's English that's really backwards.

In the very first image above, Rajulun = a man, the thing being described appears first, Sualehun = pious, the adjective comes second. A pious man. 

RULES

The 2 words being described must match their grammatical states.

I like to use the acronym SING.

They must match in:-

1. STATE = both words must be Marfoo, Mansoob or Majroor which means they match their Harakat/Iraab.

2. (In)Definite articles = of Alif-Laam (ma`rifa) or a Tanween (nakira) must be identical. Check the beginning and end.

3. NUMBER = how many are talked about must be the same.

4. GENDER = of the words must reflect the same signs (is there a taa-marbuta ة on the end?)

Remember: to get to this topic, we expect you to understand terminology like Mansoob, Nakira and Taa-marbuta. If not, rewind).

Examples:

• طَالِبَةٌ ذَكِيَّةٌ = A female student. Clever, intelligent. Intelligent female student.
• وَلَدٌ صَغِيرٌ = A boy. Small. Small boy. 

I don't have many examples here but you can watch this video by iArabic on Mausoof and the trusty Madinah Arabic organisation for adjectives.

What if we use Proper Nouns?

Proper nouns are things like people's names, cities. They never take an Alif-Laam (which means 'The'). You wouldn't say, the Muhammad, the Lahore, the England.

Names like these also called definite (marifa) nouns. 

In Arabic, the proper noun appears first. 

Since proper nouns don't take Alif-Laam, the adjective has to take an Alif-Laam to give it a proper state too. Such as:

That takes us into intermediate level work and covers pretty much most of adjectives. 

As a round-up for all the rules, remember:

• Only nouns (isms) are adjectives.
• Adjectives come in pairs as Mausoof then Siffat. Or the Manoot followed by Naat. 
• The thing being described is always written, said and read first. 
• The adjective comes after.
• Both nouns/adjectives must match in SING.
• Check the beginning and ends of words for the SING rules.
• Proper nouns are already definite and don't take Alif-Laam.
• Proper nouns demand that the adjective does take an Alif-Laam to match. 

Any questions or corrections, please comment below.

Jazakallah khair!

Zaufishan & co.